


Neko Effect

by Hydez



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Transformation, Cats, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28864497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hydez/pseuds/Hydez
Summary: Its Late September, and Investigation Team is training in the TV world, when they come across a new Shadow which induces a peculiar status effect: Neko.While at first it doesn't seem to do much, when the effect follows Yu Naurkami out of the TV world, his life is quickly thrown topsy-turvy, and events of Persona 4 taken on a strange (and furrier) feline twist.(will add more tags & description as the story goes on)
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Neko Effect

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first attempt as publishing one of the fan fics i wrote, so please go easy on me.

_**September 21 st** _

You and the rest of the investigation team reach the bottom of the Secret Laboratory for the 2nd time this week. You already traveled down here almost immediately after Naoto was taken, and man was it tough. You usually push everyone to train after rescuing people, but you and everyone else had though the case was solved back in august. It made you less prepared for this lab the first time. But now that you know that the case is not over you are as determined as ever to stay on top of things.

“Partner, look out!”

Yosuke shoves you aside as the Extreme Vessel fired its cannons right at you. You had been saved from its barrage, but Yosuke took the shots and was sent flying.

“Yosuke!” you looked back as you saw him tumble back from the velocity of the shot. Heavily bruised and battered. He was probably unconscious from the attack.

“I got him!” Teddie replied, using Samarecarm to get Yosuke up and moving again, as Yukiko set the tank on fire. You refocused your gaze on the target, anger tinging your actions, as the card floated in front of you.

“Persona!” You yell out, summoning Jinn, lighting the tank so thoroughly ablaze that it begins to evaporate into cinders. You watch it writhe in flames, losing its solid tank like form, becoming an amorphous darkness lit on fire. That’s how you know the shadow is too weak to keep fighting, and finally peel your attention away from it to the more important task.

“Yosuke are you alright?” you say, rushing over to the boy as Teddie help him up.

“ugh, yeah. Thanks Ted” Yosuke fully stands, letting Teddie free from his weight leaning on him.

“My pleasure!” the little bear bounces.

“Man, I am so lucky we have magic healing, otherwise, I’d be a goner.” Yosuke leans back, his hand behind his head, trying to laugh off his near-death encounter.

“I’m pretty sure we’d all be dead several times over without it.” Yukiko casually adds, lightly healing herself.

“uh, y-yeah…” Yosuke stutters. You don’t think Yosuke has fully found his groove when talking to Yukiko after all this time. At least, not without the added presence of Chie. “Man, it must suck for everyone else. They can’t heal themselves.”

“Hey, I can hear that you know!” Speaking of the plucky meat monster, Chie runs up and slugs Yosuke hard in the arm.

“H-hey!” He flinches

“Man, you are so reckless sometimes.” Chie just shakes her head.

“Don’t give him too much of a beating. He did it to save Senpai” Rise calmly adds, joining in the room with Kanji in toe.

“So, Senpai,” Kanji speaks up, avoiding the comical squabbling of the rest of your friends, and ask “Should we start looking around?”

“Good Idea Kanji. Everyone, lets search around this lab for clues.” You gather everyone’s attention, and get to searching the strange lab you found Naoto in. You’ve always found interesting things in these deepest parts of the dungeons. Usually really useful items. So far, however, nothing obvious is seen as you look around the lab. Everyone separates into groups to search. Yukiko and Chie giggling in one corner, Kanji and Teddie bantering in another, with Rise on watch for any other potential shadows, while you and Yosuke search around the operating table in the middle.

“So, Naoto’s shadow was planning on cutting him up on here I guess,” Yosuke starts thinking out loud. “Or, uh, her, I guess. Man, I can’t believe Naoto was a girl all this time. And he seemed so cool.”

-> She’s Still Cool

-> Can we not talk about that?

**- > ...**

“…” You stay quiet for perhaps a second too long before responding. You don’t even know what to say, so you simply say, “yeah.”

You know Yosuke is just wanting to talk, and his letting his thoughts run unfiltered as usual. Normally, it’s something you really like about him. That’s honesty. But other times, he says something that just sort of stings in ways you are never sure how to express. Usually it’s when he’s talking about Kanji, but his comments on Naoto produce the same reaction in you.

It kind of… hurts? You don’t really know why. Maybe it’s an empathy thing? You know whenever Yosuke makes a remark about Kanji’s… _interests_ … It usually sets Kanji off. You still haven’t had a real conversation with Kanji about that, since, well, the bathhouse, but you know it’s something that he’s sensitive to. Maybe you’re just sympathetic? Kanji is your friend too after all. And Naoto…

You don’t know. Is Naoto your friend? You haven’t gotten that feeling. That sense of a bond, of a social link between you two yet. Maybe that means you’re just acquaintances? Still, based on everything you saw in this lab, how Naoto saw himself, or uh, herself, didn’t seem to come up much. It was mostly a lot of angst on being treated like a kid. For having childish interests, maybe? Or maybe you are just reading into things that are not there.

“Hey, partner?” Yosuke taps your shoulder. You must have obviously been lost in thought. “What were you thinking about? You weren’t in that ‘blue limo’ place you said you go to sometimes, were you?”

“No. can’t here. Only in specific places.”

“Like, a brick wall in the shopping district?” the inflection Yosuke gives makes it seem like he is trying to tease you.

“Yes. That is one of the places.” You respond simply. He shoots you a small annoyed look, that you find quietly hilarious. He really should learn your deadpan game is perfect.

“So, what were you thinking about partner?” Yosuke continues, get back to looking around the operating table.

“Bonds. Well, my bonds with people.” You answer, also looking around the table for any secrets.

“Bonds, you mean, like the kind that give you all the persona’s you got?”

“Yeah. I can… feel when I have a bond that gives me strength, and I can even rank how strong they are. I am just thinking, how I don’t feel I have one with Naoto yet, so I’m not sure that means we’re even friends.”

“Whoa whoa whao, hold up,” Yosuke stops searching, “You mean you rank your friendships?”

“Yes.” You say blankly. “1 thru 10 in strength. 1 being a newly formed bond, and 10 being the strongest.”

“That’s really weird partner,” he gives you a look of confusion, followed by a look of pleading curiosity, “What rank am I?” He almost looks like a sad puppy dog. It makes you chuckle.

“Ten, obviously.”

“Yes!” he shouts, fist pumping. Then he looks around nervously, hoping no one else caught his darkish display. Luckily everyone else are preoccupied actually searching and not gossiping like you two are. “Do you have anyone else who are a ten?”

Thank makes you let out an actual quiet laugh. Something about his desperation feels… comforting, in a way you can’t articulate.

“Maybe,” You say with a sly smirk.

“C’mon partner. You gotta tell me who my competition is!”

You have to kneel down under the table to hide the warm smile that sentence gives you. You try to hide laughing more while you tell him, “It’s not a competition Yosuke. Every bond I have is different. The rank is just for how strong of a persona I get out of it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Yosuke deflates, “Makes sense. Still, it’s a weird way to look at your friends, partner.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t- what the?” You cut the banter, finding a small red button hiding in a small hidden compartment on the underside of the table. You press it.

“What, the!” You and Yosuke step back as the Table begins to rumble.

“You guys find something?” Rise says, drawing everyone’s attention to the table as it begins to rattle and compress.

“Yosuke, what did you do?!” Chie chides.

“Hey, why are you blaming me!” Yosuke retorts.

“Everyone calm down!” You let out in your leadership voice as the table finishes its compression. “I think I found a secret passage.”

“wow! Sensei your so cool!” Teddie says, examining the next stairway down.

“That’s strange. We haven’t had a dungeon go deeper than the shadows chamber.” Yukiko adds.

“Indeed.” You nod, “Everyone get ready. We’re going to head down there and see where it leads.” Everyone gets back into formation. You, Yosuke, Teddie, and Yukiko in front, with Rise, Chie and Kanji a bit behind acting as defense.

Down the stairs, the environment seems to change. At first the chamber is dark, then a few wall torches light the path. the high-tech metal walling is gone, replaced by more natural rocks. There are no branching paths, and Rise hasn’t spotted any shadows nearby.

“What is this tunnel?” Chie asks

“It seems like it might be an escape tunnel from the looks of it.” You answer.

“Really, you mean Naoto had a way out of that lab the whole time!” Yosuke complains loudly.

“Hey!” Kanji yells back, “I doubt Naoto even knew about this passage. He was sort of, you know, pre-occupied…” the force in Kanji’s voice peters out as he keeps talking.

“Besides, I doubt this path leads to a safe… place.” Rise starts to add, “no way.” Rise immediately rushes out into a sprint, dashing past the rest of the group, further forward as the tunnel path turns.

“Rise wait!” You call out, quickly rushing to catch up with her, everyone else in quick pursuit behind you. Just around the bend, you see the opening to the tunnel. There is a bright light from beyond the tunnel, obscuring your vision heavily. Once you escape the tunnel, you see what made Rise run off ahead.

Just beyond the tunnel, you and the rest of the investigation team are now standing on a ridge overlooking a massive forest. It stretches out past the point where the glasses Teddie gave you all makes the fog fade off to. In fact, even with the glasses, the forest seems to be shrouded in a mist all on its own.

“Guys, I don’t think were in Naoto’s dungeon anymore.” Teddie, is trembling, hiding behind Yosuke.

“what is this place?” Chie asks

“It’s so big.” Yukiko murmurs

“Rise, do you sense any danger nearby?” You ask her.

“huh! Oh, um,” she pulls out her persona again, and begins checking. “There do seem to be some shadows I can pick up, some really strong ones too, but they seem to be very far away. They’re barely in my field of detection.”

“So, it’s safe to go a bit further ahead. Cool.” You don’t wait for a response, before jumping down and sliding down the slope of the ridge into the Misty Forest below.

“Ah, Senpai!” Rise shouts.

“Hey partner, wait up!” You hear, along with the sound of another person joining you down the ridge. You reach the slopes base at the forests edge and look back. Yosuke is not far behind you, and the rest of the investigation team is not far behind him. You wait for everyone to land before you begin dictating your directions.

“Everyone okay?”, a general wave of `yeah` follows. “good. This forest looks way more open than the dungeons we’ve explored before, so we might want to stay closer together than usual.”

“Partner, should we even be going forward? I think we’re all a little drained from running thru that crazy lab a 2nd time.”

“We should be able to handle at least one round of shadows. Plus, we really should figure out what this place is.”

“Okay…” Yosuke sighs, following you as you walk into the misty thicket of trees.

Well, you say trees. Up close, all the tree’s look to be made of stone. Additionally, the ground is made of sand. This is a Misty Forest of Stone. The mist is also strange, past these lines of small stones which seem to act as boarders down the forest paths, the strange mist almost acts like the walls, being impenetrably thick. No one approached the deep mist, for fear they might get lost in it. You wander down the path for a while. Despite the open-air feel, this forest is no different than any other dungeon you’ve traveled. Except, one thing…

“Rise, have you spotted any nearby shadows?” You ask, concerned at the unnatural quiet.

“N-no, not really. They all seem to be rather far away. Well, there is one that is a bit closer, but it’s still very far away.

“Man, this place is getting stranger every second,” Yosuke moans.

“um, Teddie,” Yukiko asks, “what do you think this place is? Is it normally like this outside the dungeons?”

“No way!” Teddie roars, shaking, “You’ve seen what this place is like between the dungeons and our entrance. It’s mostly metal and fog, occasionally changing to brief random places, then back again. I’ve haven’t seen any place this big and consistently shaped outside of the dungeons you guys made.”

“And you don’t think there’s anyone here who made this place?” Chie asks.

“I don’t smell anyone.”

“Maybe this is the killer’s place,” Kanji comments. Everyone halts as he says this. “like, maybe they came in here at one point and made this place?”

“hrrm, that sounds plausible. Partner, what do you think?”

“Everyone! Look out!” Rise shouts, before you can answer. “That one nearby shadow. It appears to be running right for us!”

“What?!”

“How does it know we’re here?”

“Everyone, get in battle formation!” You shout, as a dark figure in the mist approaches.

The shadow wastes no time lunging from its sprint at you, its claws bared. You swing your sword to intercept, moving your momentum and its, so the sharp claws only scratch you lightly. No serious damage, but it broke the skin. The shadow slides from its attack besides you, and you swerve to get a good look at it.

It is a large feline creature, roughly the size of a lion, but all black like a more literal shadow. Around its neck and on its limbs hold a collar and restrains, all with broken chains on them. Attached to the restraints instead holds 4 flowing bands with kanji written on them. They seem to flow like in a constant breeze, and you don’t really focus on the words, except seeing the kanji for “cat” in there. Along its spine was metal, and its tail was mechanical, ending in a huge syringe filled with a bubbling green liquid. On its face, it had a mask, like most shadows do, but this mask was new. It was red, with large empty black holes for eyes, and swirled horns. On its forehead was the roman number “XV”. On its ears it had large bells as sort of earrings.

“Everyone look out, it’s a new one” You say, as Yosuke, Yukiko, and Teddie get into formation around the shadow. “Rise, can we get an analysis!”

“I’m on it,” Rise replies. Chie and Kanji set up formation besides her, in the off chance the shadow, or any other shadow attacks Rise while you all are in combat.

“Bear-sona!” Teddie shouts, summoning walls of Ice around the shadow. It breaks free from it easily with little visible damage from the attack.

“dang, so Bufu doesn’t affect it much,” You murmer to yourself, mentally rolling thru your persona’s for the best one to face this threat.

“Agnidyne!” Yukiko shouts, setting it ablaze with her persona. Like the Ice, the flames do little to deter the creature.

“Man, fire does jack too,” you hear Yosuke say under his breath. “well, how about some wind!” he calls out his persona to summon forth the gust of wind he needs. It also shows little affect against the current.

“that has no affect either, well, I guess I better try thunder just in case,” you murmur, selecting the appropriate persona for the task. “Rise, how is the analysis?”

“Almost done Sempai. This shadow, it seems really strange though, be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” you shrug, shattering the card in your hand, and calling forth the mighty thunder of Thor. in a deep flash of light and electricity you bath the shadow in it. You see its dark silhouette standing firm under the onslaught. “damn. I guess is completely elemental resistant…”

The shadow begins to move again, seemingly tired of obliging your groups attacks which don’t seem to affect it much. It leans back, and it roars.

“Aaah!”

Its maw, a vibrating white and black much like the entrance to the TV world, lets out a powerful and earthshaking blast of sonic energy. The force of the blast sends everyone flying, knocking everyone near it down.

You see the creature prepares its follow-up attack, its stinger tail swishing behind it. It prowls towards Yosuke. Its large needle tail poised to jab at him while he is down. You get up as fast as you can, and you push Yosuke out of the way of the attack. You see the shock on his face, as you send him flying to the side as the needle stabs into your side.

The effect is paralyzing. You drop your sword and look down at the syringe in your gut. You see it press down. The oozing green fluid, whatever it is, feels like it is entering your body. It is numbing like an anesthetic. You feel your heath and SP draining from you. This must be the shadows special killer move.

“Put him down Now!” you hear. Yosuke leaps at the beast with his kunai in both arms stabbing into its side as he lands. The creature roars again in pain, pulling the syringe out of you. It was apparently the only thing holding you up at that point, as you fall to the ground.

You are barely conscious, hearing the sounds of stabbing, the roar of the beast, and the concerned voices of your friends. The next thing you know everyone around you. You hear someone shout, “he’s poisoned!” with something of “Posumudi”, and “Diarahan” and soon after, you feel your senses come back to you.

“Oh, thank goodness, he’s fine, well, wait…” Rise says, at first relieved, but then confused for some reason. No one else shares her confusion, as they all seem happy at your survival.

“You really scared us there, Partner,” Yosuke puts his hand on your shoulder.

“uh, what happened?” you ask, trying to regain your baring. You try to stand and can only manage to lean on Yosuke even more.

“You should have seen it senpai, Yosuke-senpai was all,’yarrggh’ and attacked the thing after it grabbed you.” Kanji starts… gushing? “It was really cool,”

“Oh, thanks kanji,” You see Yosuke blush.

“and he kept on the thing even after it roared again and again. Holding on and on screaming at it to let you go and- “

“Thank you, Kanji!” Yosuke’s face continues to blush, “You can stop now.”

“What happened to the shadow after that.” You ask, trying to piece together the events.

“We all got around your sensei, making sure it couldn’t come near you,” Teddie fills in, “but it seemed weak and scared of us, so it just ran off.”

“Rise-chan, is that thing still nearby?” Yukiko asks.

“huh, what? Oh, uh, no.” Rise answers. “it ran far away. I can’t sense it anymore. But, you guys, I think we should get going back, my readings of Senpai are really strange. We should get somewhere safe.”

Everyone agrees, and you still feel too out of it to really argue against it. Your faculties still haven’t quiet returned to you. The team pulls out one of the Goho-M’s you bought, and it sends you all way to the entrance. But… not the entrance you expected.

It seems to take you all to the entrance of the Misty Forest, which is a rock garden, with a few benches to sit on. The garden seems to be between two large rocks, and a classic red gate holds the entrance to the forest proper. At the gardens other end, it seems to dissipate to the more usual TV world aesthetic.

“What the?”

“Where are we now?” Yosuke moans as you cling to his side.

“oh!” Teddie sniffs a bit, “I can smell the way home from here!”

“I guess this place really is its own dungeon.” Chie adds.

“come on, let’s set Senpai down over here,” Rise motions to the benches, and Yosuke and Kanji help you over to the bench to sit you down.

“what wrong with Senpai.” Kanji asks her,” We cured him of the poison, right? Why does he still seem out of it?”

“Yes, we cured the poison, but, well…” Rise hesitates, “he still seems to be under a status effect.”

“You guys are really worrying too much about me,” you attempt to protest, “I’m doing fine ~nya.” Everyone goes quiet, and stares at you. “nya? What?”

“According to my data, senpai seems to still be under a status effect I’ve never seen before called, ‘Neko’.”

“That sounds like a very silly status effect, nya~. What do nya think it does?”

Everyone goes quiet again, staring at you, as you begin to realize what you just said. Yukiko starts bursting into a fit of laughter.

“hahaha, that is so, hahaha, silly, hahahaha,”

“Hey, c’mon, it’s not funny, “Yosuke protests.

“it’s a little funny, nya~.” You shrug. Yukiko laughs even harder.

“I’m not really sure what the status is supposed to do,” Rise continues, “Well, you know, besides the obvious.”

“Maybe that’s all it does?” Kanji replies. “Like a really weak joke status.”

“Nya, its whatever, nya~” you say, concentrating to call forth a persona that can heal status effects. “persona!” nothing appears. You try again. “persona!” nothing. “Purrsona!” nothing still, but Yukiko keeps laughing.

“Maybe it’s like the status Silence,” Chie adds, seeing as you can’t summon your persona.

“Nya, nyat seems redundnyat, nya~” you try and reply, coming out more nya’s that words.

From there, everyone starts pulling out all their collective healing spells, and items. Patra, Mutudi, Nervundi, Amrita, even Salvation. But none of them can make the effect go away. In fact, none of them even put a dent in your worsening Nyas~.

“This isn’t good,” Rise worries. You can see from Yosuke’s expression that he feels the same. Worse, maybe even.

“Nya guys, nyall nya to nya nya~” you attempt to calm them down, but between all the nya’s, you can do much to dissuade their fears.

“Damn it, it’s getting worse,” Yosuke moans,

“Nyasuke…”

“Status effects don’t last this long, right?” Chie asks, “usually they wear off after battle. And even the ones that don’t, they usually just go away when we leave the TV world, right?”

You nod in agreement, trying not to verbally reply lest it all come out nya.

“Maybe,” Rise ponders, “we haven’t really tried testing it with any other status effect, but that seems likely.”

“Besides,” Kanji adds, checking the time on his phone, “It’s starting to get real late.”

“Yeah, crap,” Yosuke confirms, checking his phone too, “Junes is going to close soon. We can’t really stay in here any longer.”

“Nyasuke,” You finally speak up, “Nya’ll be finya~” You don’t know if that did any help calming him down, but it did spark another laughing fit from Yukiko.

* * *

You all fall out of the TV world back into Junes’ electronic department. As usually, no one is around to notice you all falling out of a huge flat screen TV. You are always weirdly lucky that way. Everyone starts to get up. None of you are good at landing from the travel back or forth.

“Yu, are you okay?” Yosuke asks, helping you up. He looks concerned, and you feel very tempted in your response.

->Good, but tired

->Purrfect, nyah~

**- > I’m good.**

“I’m good.” Everyone waits for a moment after you respond. They seem to be waiting to see if you add an extra ‘nya’, but no such nya comes. “What?” they all let a sigh of relief.

“He seems to be okay,” Yosuke whips away the anxious sweat drops on his brow.

“I told you I’d be fine.” You say

“Thank goodness,” Rise sighs.

“You really had us worried there senpai,” Kanji adds.

You want to tell them all they really didn’t need to be so worried for you, that you’re not that important, but with a tidal wave of everyone’s worry, you are not sure saying anything would help.

“That was a really weird shadow, don’t you guys think?” Chie adds, mercifully changing the topic.

“Yeah, it was…” Rise adds, “and it ran away before I could complete my analysis.”

“Man, that whole Forest was weird,” says Kanji, “What was even with that place?”

“Another mystery for us to solve I suppose,” You add.

Before anyone else can add much more, you all overhear the “June is closing in 15 minutes” announcement on the intercom. Yosuke was right, it is getting late.

As a group, you perform the end of investigation rituals you’ve all developed: making sure everyone is okay, making the plan for the next visit, etc. and with that taken care of, everyone splits off in their own direction. Kanji and Rise head off to their homes in the shopping district. Chie heads off to take Yukiko to her inn, not that she really needs to. And you, Yosuke, and Teddie, walk off towards your respective homes.

“I still can believe how cool Yosuke was on that big meanie shadow, sensei!”

“Oh, don’t you start too you dumb bear.” Yosuke rustles Teddie’s oddly swishy hair. “Its already embarrassing enough hearing it from Kanji.”

->Not used to praise, partner?

**- >Thanks again, for saving me**

->…

“Thanks again, for saving me, Yosuke.”

“Ack! Not you too,” You think you see Yosuke blush slightly in the dark autumn twilight. “B-besides. It’s no big deal. I’ve jumped in to save your butt countless times already.” He gives a playful shove. “Besides, partner. You were the one who save me first. That big thing was going to stab me with the needle if you hadn’t jumped in.”

“Yeah! That Yosuke would be the one going Nya!” Teddie bounces.

“God, I don’t think Chie would ever let me live that down if that happened.” Yosuke sighs, “Seriously, thanks man.”

“Like you said, you are saving me all the time. And we’re partner’s after all.” You unconsciously wrap your arm around his neck. “Completely equal, remember? So of course, I’d jump in and save you. Or was our little brawl on the riverbank about something else?”

“H-hey!” Yosuke shoves you again. A little more forceful than you think he intended. “Don’t be bringing that up against me man. Not cool!”

“You guys had a fight? Did something happen?” Teddie begins to worry,

“And now I gotta deal with that,” Yosuke sighs once more. “Well, this is where we part ways,” He adds, having now reached the intersection where your paths home diverges. “See Later Partner,”

“bye bye Sensei!” Teddie waves off

“Later you too.” You wave back, going the other way. You start thinking about how the day was, and particularly that strange shadow. Under your breath you let out, “nya…”

Yukiko is right, it is kind of funny.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this chapter like, back in 2019, and only did a light editing pass before tossing it here, so i hope it wasn't too rough for you to read!


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